"Write as many songs as you can. It's fine to write bad songs. Just move on to the next one. Eventually, you'll strike gold." That's the advice I heard from nearly every pro writer I worked with or learned from. It's advice that's always been hard for me to follow, which might explain why I was never signed to a staff writing deal.

I hate writing bad songs. I'm usually not going to start a song unless I have an idea that excites me or a message or a story I want to communicate. If I have that, then I'm going to want to finish it. I don't consider it finished until I think it's a good song. I may put it on the shelf for a while until I can figure out how to approach it. It can take me days, weeks, months, or even years to figure a song out. Once in a while, I may give up on a song. Maybe I should count those as bad songs. But every once in a while, I may rediscover one of those and try to fix it.

Currently, I have something I've been working on for weeks on. At one point, I had a version that seemed complete, but I didn't like it. I started thinking I should just scrap it, but I couldn't stop thinking about how to improve it. I finally came up with something.

Music publishers and A&R people often say, "We have plently of good songs. We need great songs." When they say "great songs", they mean hits on the Billboard charts. That's a goal that non-performing songwirters are constantly striving for and rarely if ever achieving.

That's a big reason why it's more satisfying to write for myself as an artist. I don't have to worry about the good song/hit song distinction. Of course I'd like to have a hit song. It would be a dream come true. The radio is usually in the back of my mind when I'm writing, but it's not my main target. I'm writing a song that I want to perform. My latest is probably not a radio hit, because the vast majority of songs aren't. But it's something I like. If my audience likes it,. too, then I've done what I set out to do.